these doc martens I got for cheap - Page 3

no, not necessarily...besides I'm too old and know better to beat down kids walking down the street (might scuff my shoes on his head, which would suck)

why do you assume skinheads have to be white? there are plenty of black, asian, hispanic, arab, whatever skinheads. Japan and Malaysia in particular have huge skinhead scenes outside of US and Europe.

but whatevers...every skinhead thread always ends up drowning in the mire that people assume is some kind of racist ideology. If the OP wants to wear oxblood docs, fine knock yerself out...just saying that those shoes come from a pretty long history of tribal association and are hardly just "any ol footwear", and it's good to be informed of those associations before you go out

when i think of skinheads in america i think of white racists, who probably wouldnt take kindly to an asian? i dont know. so were you a skinhead, and if so why would you have hard feelings towards the ones you saw? do you now not like them? im confused.

So, does the Russian skinhead movement still follow the traditional uniform that your describe, GS? Or does that delve into something vastly different.

That's just a whole different scene....those russian, polish and other eastern euro neo-nazi "skinheads" aren't in any way skinheads as I would call it. They don't listen to the same music, don't have the interest in same kinda style....and their politics are fuckin garbage.

I have a documentary that follows some Polish "skins" and their interpretation of the cult is bullshit, has nothing to do with the original scene. Doesn't even have anything to do with the british white power scene of the early 80's which was still surprisingly traditional despite their skrewed political beliefs.

Thanks for the quick summary, really helped clear things up. It's a shame the two scenes/subcultures can get mixed up in some casual observers minds (myself included) because they are ill informed. Nice to have this set straight.

So can you say that the association skinheads with red DMs is more important than the association of skinheads with racism?

If so, only due to numbers? (let's say hypotehtically, if 90% of skinheads wear red DMs, while only 15% are racist)

yea that sounds about right

Quote:

Originally Posted by West24

when i think of skinheads in america i think of white racists, who probably wouldnt take kindly to an asian? i dont know. so were you a skinhead, and if so why would you have hard feelings towards the ones you saw? do you now not like them? im confused.

i "claimed" for over ten years, whatever that means nowadays since I never got into the gang aspect of it.....but I got into it at the tail end when the cliche "united skins" sort of meant something, where most skinheads tended to get along (other than crew rivalry) regardless of politics and race and just fight other punks/longhairs. There were non-white guys that hung out with white racialist guys with no problems.....then there were the oddball non-white guys that ended up joining white power crews (??). the whole scene was characterized by knuckleheads, but some really good guys came out of it that are some of the most standup and intelligent fellas I know. When I see a skinhead nowadays I can't help but think "give it up fella, that subculture died years ago" but I'm sure the same would have been said to my generation by the original skins from the 60s. There's a guy that posts on Ask Andy that was from the original 60s traditional skin scene in England and has a lot of interesting insights on the cult from his perspective. Mine is mostly from a 2nd/3rd generation PoV from the mid 80s-mid 90s American scene.

a small anecdote on your first sentence...I played guitar in a skinhead hardcore/oi band about 5 years ago and after one show (that was in full attendance by a bunch of white power skins) we got invited to play an Aryan fest because they were really into our band and didnt care about my yellow ass being in the band since "I seemed cool". Needless to say we declined their offer.

The whole WP/non-WP scene has had some interesting overlaps.....Suggs (singer of ska band Madness) was best friends with Ian Stuart (singer of notorious racist band Skrewdriver)....and I know of SHARPS (skinheads against racial prejudice) who roadied or did security for racist bands like Brutal Attack. And some extreme racist bands have had singers that used to be SHARP and vice versa. The whacked skinhead scene has never been black/white (no pun intended) with a lot of confused dynamics to it.

That's YOU, but I'd bet that when 99% of the population hears the word "skinhead," the first thing they think of is a bunch of shaved-headed, jackbooted fucks wearing swastikas and committing hate crimes. Anyway, I just wanted confirmation that you indeed meant what I THOUGHT you mean. I really know very little about skins; not much more than that a small(ish) group of high-profile assholes did enough to tarnish the image of the entire subculture.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Get Smart

The whacked skinhead scene has never been black/white (no pun intended) with a lot of confused dynamics to it.

Maybe I'm a bit simplistic in my views, but I've always felt that the space between "racist pieces of shit" and "everybody else" was a pretty good place to draw a dividing line.

Just to gain some clarity on the matter, what exactly does the whole white/red/green/black laces symbolize?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Get Smart

I'm in this camp. I've always felt that subcultures should self police their scene, as childish and silly as it sounds, I'm not opposed to that concept.

I've never met anyone wearing cherry red Docs who wasnt into the skinhead scene. Black ones are more ubiquitous, but even back in the mid-later 80s I never saw a guy wearing black Docs that wasnt a punk/skin...it wasnt til the 90s that black Docs became more mainstream and safe, but the cherry red/oxbloods have always remained top skinhead gear.

I havent "claimed" in years but I still wear my oxbloods with white laces..... but I can handle my shit